Long touted as the future of the UFC lightweight division, dominant Dagestani grappler Khabib Nurmagomedov will participate in the biggest fight of his career when he meets interim champion Tony Ferguson in the main event of next month’s (April 7, 2018) UFC 223 from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
There’s certainly some trepidation from the MMA world given that the high-profile bout has been booked three times before only to fall apart, most recently at last March’s UFC 209 when Khabib failed to show up for weigh-ins while hospitalized.
But that’s far from the only uncertainty surrounding what could quite possibly be the most anticipated fight in MMA right now.
The other shadow of ambiguity cast over UFC 223 is the situation surrounding Conor McGregor’s lightweight title, which he has yet to defend since winning it from Eddie Alvarez in November 2016. UFC president Dana White insists Ferguson vs. Khabib will be for the ‘real belt’ but hasn’t officially stripped McGregor.
Nurmagomedov put things in his own much simpler terms in a recent interview with Yahoo’s Kevin Iole (transcribed via MMA Mania), suggesting the UFC has never put together a fight of this magnitude:
“Only four weeks before fight, tough opponent, real belt on the line. 10 win streak versus nine win streak. UFC never make this fight. 25 years UFC history, they never make fight like this fight. This is high level fight. This is going to be very good for fans, for guy who gonna take this belt, UFC gonna make money. Everyone gonna be happy because this fight very high level fight and this fight most important fight in UFC today.”
Nurmagomedov held fast in his insistence that he would be fighting Ferguson for the real belt, not the ‘fake’ interim one ‘El Cucuy’ has or the one McGregor has held hostage for almost a year-and-a-half (not the nearly three years Khabib suggests):
“First of all it’s about real belt, this is not interim championship, this is not Tony Ferguson belt, this is not Conor McGregor belt, this is real belt,” said Nurmagomedov. “I’m not going to fight Tony Ferguson fake belt. I’m not going to fight Conor McGregor belt when he win this fight almost three years ago. I’m going to fight real belt and this is big motivation. Five round, big fight. We are supposed to fight three times now.”
But even with a seemingly endless amount of controversy following the pivotal match-up, Khabib claims he would make defeating Ferguson, who has won 10 straight fights in the UFC’s talented 155-pound arena, just as easy as he has defeating other high-profile opponents:
“I’m going to make this fight easy,” Nurmagomedov continued. “People gonna talk about this fight, ‘Wow, nobody do this before with Tony Ferguson.’ Like I do with Michael Johnson, like I do Rafael dos Anjos, like I do with Edson Barboza, with everybody. Who beat them like this? I’m gonna do this again with Tony Ferguson.”
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